Months of preparations and years of training have all led up to this moment. The team has been acclimatizing for over a month and climbing through storms to be in position. The Sherpa team has carried hundreds of loads to stock camps. The team has consumed countless gallons of electrolyte mix and energy gels to get to this point. Now the summit bid is officially under way. 

The Everest team woke up at 3am this morning and were out the door by 4am to make the journey to camp 1. They arrived safely there several hours later and are all tucked in to their tents relaxing for the day. They will push on to Advanced base camp at Camp 2 tomorrow before heading up the Lhotse face the following day. It will take them 5 days to stand on top assuming weather cooperates and there are no delays. 

We’re hoping for a Friday the 18th summit for the Everest climbers and a Saturday the 19th summit for Lhotse. Our Lhotse team will go through the same ritual tonight to make their way up to Camp 1, a day behind the Everest team. 

We are watching the weather like hawks and currently everything is looking excellent for their summit window. We have hired the most advanced weather forecasting and models available and they have been incredibly accurate. We are seeing some winds high on the mountain today associated with some precipitation down low, which was predicted in the models. The weather is supposed to stabilize over the next few days. Sometimes to put yourself in position for the perfect summit day one needs to push inclement weather down low. 

The team is feeling healthy and strong and are all mentally prepared for the arduous climbing ahead. We will keep you posted each day of the summit effort and will try to provide several real-time updates on the blog on summit day as the team ascends and descends. We’re underway!

All best from Mt Everest, 

Mike Hamill

CTSS Owner